The federal government’s proposed reforms to public sector sick leave were announced last year during National Public Service Week – a week during which, ahem, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a statement thanking Canada’s public servants for their “dedication, professionalism and commitment”.

The full text of the PBO report is here, and it contains some very intriguing information.

The Treasury Board Secretariat (Clement’s office) calculated the average length of leaves due to illness for federal public sector workers in 2011-12 as 18.26 days . However, its calculations included time off for workplace injuries, and absences by workers on long-term disability. If those are removed from the calculations, according to the PBO, the average length of leaves due to illness drops to 11.52 days.

The PBO report estimates that the cost of sick leaves by federal public service workers has increased almost 68% between 2001-02 and 2000-12. However, the report points out that the number of federal public servants has increased during that time, and that salaries for federal public sector workers have also increased. So increases in costs for sick days are not necessarily because more sick days are being taken – but because more workers and higher salaries means higher overall costs for sick days.

The PBO report cites Statistics Canada research indicating that there are some significant demographic differences between Canada’s public and private sector workers. The average age of public sector workers is higher; there are more women workers in the public sector; and there is a higher rate of unionization in the public sector. When the effects of these differences are removed from calculations of public and private sector absenteeism rates, the difference in average annual absenteeism between the two sectors is only 1.1 days.

The report also notes that the PBO was not able to obtain information on absence rates in individual departments,. It plans to continue its investigation to see if there are significant difference in absenteeism patterns or costs among different parts of the federal public sector.